The fissure breathed.
Shadow poured from the cracked seal in slow, coiling streams, thick as smoke and cold as winter night. The chamber trembled, dust raining from the ceiling as ancient pillars groaned under a weight they had not felt in centuries.
Hiroto couldn't move.
It wasn't fear alone that froze him, it was recognition.
The shadow beyond the seal felt familiar, like an echo of his own, yet impossibly vast. Where his shadow whispered, this one sang a low, resonant hum that vibrated through bone and blood alike.
The Shadow Hunters stumbled back.
"This wasn't part of the contract," one hissed.
The lead hunter raised his spear, but his voice had lost its edge. "Hold formation!"
The suppression runes flickered.
Then failed.
Hiroto gasped as the invisible chains around his shadow snapped. Darkness surged back into him, not violently, not hungrily but whole.
Yui cried out as the ground lurched.
"Hiroto!" Goro shouted. "Eyes on me!"
Hiroto forced himself to look away from the fissure.
"What is it?" he asked hoarsely.
Goro's jaw was tight. "Whatever it is, it's older than the city."
The fissure widened another handspan.
From within, something moved.
Not a body.
A presence.
The shadows in the chamber bent inward, drawn toward the crack like iron filings to a magnet.
Then a voice spoke.
Not aloud.
Inside Hiroto's mind.
"Blood of the Warden…"
Hiroto staggered.
"At last."
His heart thundered painfully. "Goro… it's talking to me."
Goro swore. "Of course it is."
The Shadow Hunters panicked.
Two of them bolted for the tunnels, abandoning formation entirely. One slipped on the trembling stone and vanished into darkness with a scream cut short.
The remaining hunters hesitated and then raised their weapons again, desperation replacing discipline.
"Kill the boy!" the lead hunter barked. "Now!"
They charged.
Goro met them head-on.
Steel rang violently as blades clashed, sparks bursting in the half-light. Goro moved like a man possessed, every strike precise, brutal, fueled by years of survival.
Hiroto backed toward Yui instinctively.
I can't fight all of them.
The voice returned closer now.
"You do not need to fight."
"You need only remember."
"I don't know you," Hiroto whispered.
"You know what I am."
Images flooded his mind.
A gate of endless black stone.
Figures cloaked in shadow, standing watch.
A craftsman shaping darkness with bare hands, not into blades, but into locks.
Hiroto gasped. "You're… a Warden construct."
"I am the last Sentinel," the voice replied.
"Bound here when the Gate was sealed."
Another tremor shook the chamber.
The seal fractured further.
"No!" Hiroto shouted. "Stay back!"
But the Sentinel did not advance.
It waited.
"You were meant to return," it said.
"Your blood carries the command."
Hiroto's shadow surged instinctively, spreading wide, curling protectively around Yui.
The lead hunter saw it and screamed.
"That shadow, kill him! Kill him now!"
He hurled a talisman.
It shattered midair, releasing a burst of white light that burned like fire. Hiroto cried out as pain lanced through his chest.
Yui screamed.
Something inside Hiroto snapped.
Not restraint.
Not rage.
Resolve.
"No more," he said quietly.
He stepped forward.
The Sentinel responded.
The shadow pouring from the fissure surged upward, forming a towering silhouette faceless, immense, yet strangely calm. It did not attack.
It loomed.
The Shadow Hunters froze.
"This… wasn't in any report," one whispered.
Hiroto raised his hand.
"Stop," he said.
The Sentinel obeyed.
The chamber fell deathly still.
Hiroto's knees trembled but he did not fall.
The voice softened.
"You command, Warden's blood."
Goro stared in disbelief. "Kid… what did you just do?"
Hiroto swallowed. "I… asked it to stop."
The lead hunter backed away slowly. "You don't understand what you're doing. That thing is a relic of catastrophe!"
Hiroto met his gaze. "Then leave."
The hunter hesitated then turned and ran.
The remaining hunter followed, terror overriding loyalty.
Their footsteps faded into the tunnels.
Silence returned.
The Sentinel's form began to dissolve, shadow flowing back toward the fissure.
"Wait," Hiroto said.
It paused.
"What are you?" Hiroto asked again.
"A failure," it replied.
"The Gate was sealed… but not destroyed."
Hiroto's chest tightened. "Can you hold it?"
"For a time," the Sentinel said.
"But seals decay."
The fissure began to close slowly, reluctantly as the Sentinel withdrew.
Before it vanished entirely, it spoke one last time.
"They will come."
"Not hunters."
"Rulers."
Then the shadows settled.
The seal reformed not whole, but stable.
The chamber exhaled.
Hiroto collapsed to his knees, shaking violently.
Goro rushed to him. "Easy. You're alive. That's a good start."
Yui clung to him, sobbing. "I was scared."
Hiroto wrapped his arms around her. "I know. I'm sorry."
Goro looked toward the damaged seal, his expression grim. "Kid… you just proved every nightmare story about Shadowforge true."
Hiroto nodded weakly. "And I didn't even mean to."
Goro sheathed his sword. "Which is somehow worse."
Hiroto looked at the seal, feeling the echo of the Sentinel still humming in his blood.
"The Gate isn't gone," he said quietly.
"No," Goro agreed. "And now people know you can command what guards it."
Hiroto closed his eyes.
Running was no longer an option.
Hiding was impossible.
The world beneath Kanezawa had answered his blood.
And the world above would soon demand a price.